


come gather round and hear the song

by earlymorningechoes



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alienages (Dragon Age), City Elf Culture and Customs, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Gen, Holidays, Kirkwall (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22660891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlymorningechoes/pseuds/earlymorningechoes
Summary: Merrill's first holiday away from the clan arrives, and she's upset to be alone. But an invitation teaches her that maybe she has more in common with city elves than she thought, and gives her something to celebrate.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	come gather round and hear the song

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by discussions with friends of how city elves could definitely be not Andrastian, and could follow Dalish/the old ways.
> 
> The holiday is taken from my own headcanons about Dalish/elven holidays, and _Sylaise'sulahn_ would mean approximately "Sylaise's rejoicing" ( _sulahn'nehn_ is sing/rejoice).
> 
> Title from the song "Brothers and Sisters (Hine Ma Tov)" by Nefesh Mountain.

She isn’t going to cry. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Not over this. It had been her choice to leave the clan. And being alone on a holiday isn’t truly that bad. She has a house, her very own house with a roof that only leaked a little, enough food when she can remember how to get to the market. And friends! Humans, mostly, and a dwarf and a very strange elf, but friends!

Merrill surveys the tiny main room of her now-home. A garland of daisies and a swatch of bright blue cloth she’d badgered from the robe-seller hang over the drab, dirty walls. It’s pretty, sort of, by it’s not enough. Not enough to brighten the room on a normal day, let alone on a holiday. Especially not on _Sylaise’sulahn_ , time for celebrating the comforts and necessities of home and spending time together. 

A tear slips down her cheek, and she lets it be. The daisy garland, the friends, the house of her own - it’s all so exciting, so novel and interesting, until she gets home and all she wants is the familiar scent of halla-leather aravel coverings and campfires and the sounds of the clan.

It’s only been a month. She knows it’ll change in time; someone’s laugh in the street won’t remind her of Radha and make her heart clench painfully, a trick of the light on someone’s face won’t look like Maren’s vallaslin. But right now, the house feels too big and empty, too void of laughing voices and strong hands feeding a bonfire and spinning and knitting and every other one of Sylaise’s gifts. The humans have a celebration today too - she can’t remember the name - and there’s a commotion in the house next door, city elves probably celebrating whatever that human holiday is. It only serves to make the lack of her own celebration more palpable.

With a sigh of regret and determination, Merrill paws through the bag of things she’d brought with her from Sundermount and barely looked through since. Buried at the bottom is the last thing she’d been knitting - a pair of winter socks for Pol. She won’t be able to give them to him, now, but maybe Hawke would like them? Or Isabela? Who wouldn’t want warm halla-wool socks, anyways. 

The yarn’s gotten a bit tangled from its long respite in her bag. She sets about untangling it, humming a song of praise to Sylaise as she does. It’s not right with only one voice, but it’s better than nothing. Just as she gets to the chorus and through a particularly difficult knot, there’s what sounds like a knock from the direction of the front door. She doesn’t get up right away. There’s often things knocking into the walls, other people or poorly-built market stalls or anything else under the sun. But the knock sounds again, louder this time, and she stuffs the knitting under her blanket. 

“Hello, Hawke,” she’s already saying as she opens the door, “aren’t you celebrating today? It’s good to see you but I can’t -” she stops short. The person at the door isn’t Hawke, but someone Merrill thinks might be one of her neighbors. A city elf around her own age, named...she has no idea. 

The woman is smiling, open and warm. “Is Hawke your human friend?”

Merrill just nods, uncertain of what’s going on. 

Pressing on, the woman gestures at the house next door. The front door is open, hanging a little crookedly off the hinges, and candlelight and laughter spill out. “It’s _Sylaise’sulahn_ for us. I don’t know if it is for you? But whether it is or not, you’re welcome to come celebrate with us.”

All Merrill can do is stare. Her mouth opens and closes, like she has a question, but she can’t form the words to get it out. The woman on her doorstep waits patiently, still smiling. 

“Don’t you worship Andraste? The Maker?” she finally asks. 

The woman shakes her head, scoffing. “We have our own stories. Why would we borrow anything from the shems?” The bright red hair that’s escaped from her elaborate braids floats around her head and catches on one of her ears, as if to emphasize her point. But then her smile falls, and she looks down at the ground outside Merrill’s door, scuffed and cracked. “But we might’ve gotten something wrong. We don’t have books or anything that say when the holidays are. Maybe you do? I don’t know.”

“Oh, no!” Merrill waves her hands, trying to stop that line of thought. “It’s today! _Sylaise’sulahn_. Even if we did - do - have books and all that, I can’t believe you still - how do you celebrate? Do you celebrate all the holidays? Well, I suppose you wouldn’t have a holiday for Sabrae. Are there any holidays you celebrate that we don’t? When are -“

A lilting, musical laugh bubbles from the woman’s throat. “Come on. You’ll see what we’re about. Right now I think everyone’s still just talking, we haven’t done dinner or the blessings yet.” She steps back from the scuffed, cracked step - which doesn’t seem as much of a discomfort, now - to give Merrill room to close the door. Merrill follows, but stops short. 

“Wait!” She dashes back inside, grabbing the freshly-untangled knitting she’d set aside, and holds it up to show the woman. “Also, what was your name? I’m sorry I’ve forgotten.”

That laugh again. “I’m Irissa. It’s all right, you’ve had a lot of new names to learn. Everyone will understand.” She reaches behind Merrill to pull the door shut, then gestures again to the inviting cacophony next door. 

Barely anyone looks around when Merrill first walks in, Irissa on her heels. Two men she recognizes from the market nod in her direction and immediately go back to their own conversation. A host of giggles rises up from a knot of children in one corner, two of them having a gentle sword fight with some spare knitting needles. Merrill is more than a little overwhelmed in the presence of this many people in this small a space. But everyone in the room is an elf, and she even sees one or two faces with vallaslin. If the invitation itself hadn’t eased her mind, their presence would.

“Come on, there’s some space back here,” comes Irissa’s voice from behind her. Merrill turns to follow, squeezing her way between various people she thinks she’s maybe seen before, until they make it to the wall and she can press her back against it. 

“There’s a lot of people here,” she says, once she’s gotten her bearings a little. 

Irissa nods, a grin spreading across her face. “Aren’t there? My mother loves holidays and always invites half the alienage. Especially anyone who doesn’t have anyplace else to go.”

Merrill’s heart squeezes at that. She’d never thought she’d be the one without a place to go. But before she can respond, an uproar starts at the other end of the room. A woman steps out of the kitchen carrying a platter full of chicken, followed by other people carrying more meat and fish and vegetables. The crowd quickly parts so the food-bearers can get to the table, which is barely large enough to fit all the platters that keep emerging from the kitchen. 

Merrill knows her eyes must be saucer-wide at how much food there is. That same musical laugh bubbles out of Irissa again. “My mother - the one who came out first - is also the best at wheedling some decent meat out of the butcher, and most everyone brings something when they can. A feast for Sylaise.”

Tears start up in Merrill’s eyes again. It’s not the clan, and it’ll never be the clan. But these people are maybe more her people than she’d thought. A deep voice somewhere to her right starts up a song to Sylaise - familiar Elvish words, unfamiliar tune - and she sways to the music as more voices join in. Irissa joins, her singing voice as musical as her laugh, and Merrill closes her eyes to listen. 

When the hymn ends, there’s a few moments of silence before people start producing plates. It looks like most everyone has brought their own, but Irissa grabs an extra one somehow and passes it to Merrill. As everyone takes helpings of food and moves out of the way, another song starts up, this one in the King’s Tongue and kicked off by the children. It’s a bouncy little tune, one that has her still moving to the music as she plops onto the floor and tucks into the food piled on her borrowed plate. Conversations swirl around her, about people and places she has no hope of remembering, but every so often a familiar name will jump out at her and she’ll follow a conversation for a minute. 

“Corff at the Hanged Man’s good for a drink, doesn’t care what your ears look like…”

“Had to sail just past the Gallows on a test cruise for that ship de Launcet’s had us building. And the statues. Gives me the creeps, it all does…”

“Been up Sundermount recently? I went mushroom-picking last week. I hear there’s a Dalish clan up there. Haven’t gotten the courage to talk to them yet…”

Irissa appears at Merrill’s side, her own plate piled high with food. “Enjoying eavesdropping, are we?” She drops onto the floor, cross-legged.

Cheeks flaming red, Merrill shakes her head fiercely, then nods with an embarrassed giggle. “I’m sorry! Everyone’s conversations are just so interesting!”

The smile Irissa gives her is soft and warm. “No need to worry - that’s what everyone here does. Just teasing you.”

Merrill finds herself smiling back easily. “Thank you. It’s nice to be teased. I think. I miss it.”

The smile remains on Irissa’s face, but it’s definitely sadder. “I can imagine.” She looks away, giving Merrill a moment to collect herself.

While Merrill’s still trying to control the temperature of her cheeks, there’s a booming shout from the doorway. Everyone turns as one towards the newcomer - a tall woman, broad-shouldered for an elf. Even Merrill recognizes her, the alienage’s hahren. 

“Welcome, Hahren!” cries a voice that sounds like Irissa’s, only older. The woman she’d pointed out as her mother bustles through the crowd, holding an empty plate. “Would you like something to eat? There’s still plenty.”

The hahren laughs. “No, thank you, I’ve plenty of food at home. I’m here for blessings!”

A cheer rises up, also beginning with the children, and Merrill cheers along. It may not be what she’s used to, but the energy is undeniable, and it’s blooming somewhere deep in her chest. 

“Anyone have anything to ask for blessings of Sylaise?”

It seems like everyone in the room pulls out something - children with drop spindles, adults with knitting or sewing or healing herbs, and Merrill even sees someone turn over their hand to reveal a blue-white sparkle of healing magic. She holds up her own knitting just as the hahren starts to recite - _Sylaise’enaste_ , Sylaise’s favor, _Sylaise’enansal_ , Sylaise’s blessing. 

Tears spring back to Merrill’s eyes as she says the responses with everyone else in the room. Their pronunciation is different, their tunes are different, but none of that matters.

The hahren finishes her recitation, and there’s another measure of silence. A baby’s babble is what breaks it, causing the crowd to roar with more cheers and shouts of “blessed be Sylaise!” Eventually the hahren slips back out, presumably moving on to the next house for more blessings. The conversations around Merrill pick back up where they left off. Irissa smiles next to her, eyes roaming over the room.

“So, how was your first holiday in an alienage?” she asks.

A heavy question. It sounds so simple, but Merrill has no idea where to even begin answering. She flutters her hands over her knees, trying to parse the words in her head into sentences that mean something useful. “Um. I miss home,” she starts, and Irissa’s face falls almost imperceptibly. “No, no! I mean, I miss home, and I think I always will, but this was good! I’m so glad you came to get me, and it was different but I wasn’t as sad as I thought I would be, and…” she trails off.

Irissa waits for a few moments before cocking an eyebrow. “And what?”

“And it’s just...it’s just...nice,” she babbles, unable or too uncertain to voice the thought she’d been chasing before.

A slow smile appears on Irissa’s face. “Well, I’m very glad it’s been nice, and you’re welcome here whenever - my mother loves to feed people regardless of what night it is.”

“And you?” Merrill asks, uncertain of what’s possessed her to ask it.

“I’m always here,” Irissa says, and the tone of her voice has Merrill searching her face for clarification. But she turns away, shouting along in a call-and-response song.

Lying in bed late that night, listening to the last dregs of the party, Merrill decides that maybe Kirkwall wasn’t such a terrible idea after all. 


End file.
